I’ve been poking around the Adobe Labs site, and had a play with Jam Jar, their beta social software product which has been built using their new AJAX based programming language, Flex 2.
Jam Jar is a curious blend of old and new tools and shows pretty markedly the innate problems that we are going to have with AJAX based graphics and present computer screens. This kind of software will be great for people with huge screens and the rest of us can take a hike. Sigh.
In beta ( or ‘labs edition’ as the Adobe folks call it), the space provided appears niggardly, but I suppose the point is that it is an invitation based service, for up to twenty people. There is provision to create 20 pages or ’spaces’ as they are called.
So far I’ve created a newspage and a file sharing space – I’m just in the process of finding out how to get back from a file you’ve uploaded to the main page, I seem to have closed mine which is way inconvenient.
Oh, now I see what the problem is. It closes itself down if you upload a HTML file, open it and then close it. Kapoof! The whole thing is gone, though my Word files obligingly stayed open. The service keeps asking for my password when I try to download my own files which is a bit precious.
There seem to be some nice enough tools here, however Adobe is pretty ‘grabby’ about your personal details so be careful. If you try to update your registration to change your profile name, they want MORE, MORE information…it would be better to be upfront about that at the beginning, I think.
Also there is a really annoying tutorial attached to the ‘Pick a Date’ facility which opens tabs on the side of the Date widget – but changes sides!! All while the sidebar is taken up by Google ads. Bit of a mess I think.
There is a rather nice Navigator facility which works pretty well I suppose. There are still huge bottleneck problems with computer screens, though, no matter how you look at it.
While you can anchor the page by inserting what are known as “Viewpoints” so you can visit a known spot very quickly to update on something, I find the navigation a bit messy. I still very much prefer the Wiki based layout of Jeremy Ruston’s HTML, CSS and Java based TiddlyWiki – see it here at Christy Dena’s excellent Cross-Media Entertainment site and blog, and find out more at Jeremy’s small company site, Osmosoft.com
That’s what I want from AJAX, thanks. Apart from a clean bathroom of course.
